A little confused about PREFETCH files...

This is my first post in this forum and to say I'm a little confused about prefetch files may be understated. My OS is Windows XP, service pack 3.

Some say that you should periodically clean out all the files in the prefetch folder.

Others say that you should completely disable the prefetch function.

And others say that it takes care of itself, purging old, unused files.

My Ccleaner allows you to clean "OLD Prefetch" data.

SlimCleaner allows you to clean "Prefetch".

PrivaZer does not specifically say anything about Prefetch.

I believe I understand why it was placed in XP and that was to speed up loading the programs used most often. Unfortunately, my system seems to take longer and longer to load as well as shut down. In fact... I now use the sleep mode more often then completely shutting down because of the excessive boot time. I use the above three(3) programs regularly and only use Ccleaner to clean "OLD" prefetch.

I note that most of the files in the prefetch folder have "last modified dates" that are way out (ex: 2056, 2073, etc). Others say 2014. I'm a lot confused about these files ??